Robert Faludi, Kate Hartman, Kati London, Rebecca Bray Botanicalls 2006

  • Not on view

Botanicalls gives a voice to our voiceless everyday companions: house plants. Moisture sensors in a plant's soil trigger messages that are sent to a human caretaker over a wireless network, opening up a playful yet useful line of communication about the plant’s needs. The messages are broadcast via Twitter or read aloud by a recorded human voice over the telephone; the plants are polite enough to send both distress calls and notes of thanks. Botanicalls enables just one form of interspecies communication, but its fresh use of sensor technology has a wide range of potential applications.

Gallery label from Talk to Me: Design and the Communication between People and Objects, July 24–November 7, 2011 .
Medium
Electronics, printed circuit board, stainless steel, and Arduino software
Dimensions
10 x 2 x 1 1/2" (25.4 x 5.1 x 3.8 cm)
Credit
Gift of the designers
Object number
770.2011
Department
Architecture and Design

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

All requests to license audio or video footage produced by MoMA should be addressed to Scala Archives at firenze@scalarchives.com. Motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in MoMA's Film Collection cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. For access to motion picture film stills please contact the Film Study Center. More information is also available about the film collection and the Circulating Film and Video Library.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication or moma.org, please email text_permissions@moma.org. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to archives@moma.org.

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to digital@moma.org.